Happy New Year!

As you will see if you click on the title link, 2008 is a leap year. For some reason, probably having to do with N's proclivity for leaping about, this makes me nervous.

The first book I've read this year (today) is Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese. Yet another graphic novel, I know! Brace yourselves, because I've got quite a pile more to go through this year. This one will be the best of the lot, though, I'm sure of it. I've been wanting to read it for some time now, and it is every bit as good as the reviews all said it was. C made a face when he saw me reading it; he doesn't want to read it because he's very unhappy about living it right now. Z, however, does want to read it, and I think she'll enjoy it for the same reason he won't.

Yang interweaves the tales of the Monkey King and a horrible stereotype named "cousin Chin-kee" with his protagonist Jin, a boy whose family has just moved from San Francisco to the wilds of suburbia where he is one of only two Asian Americans in the entire school. Some of the book is laugh-out-loud funny, some is incredibly painful (particularly as I've seen my own children suffer through similar situations) and every bit of it is absolutely true.

American Born Chinese was a 2006 National Book Award finalist. I hope a great many people read it. I also hope a great many libraries purchase it. Anyone who has not been a member of a visibly identifiable minority needs to have some idea of just what that really means.

On a lighter note: my brother-in-law's family gifted us with red and green compact fluorescent light bulbs for Christmas (as well as a box of the regular sort), and we've been having fun with them. After briefly considering putting a red one in as our porch light, R installed all three of the red ones in our downstairs bathroom. The result looks like we might well be the sort of establishment that has a red light on the porch:
N says it looks like a demon bathroom. At any rate, it's quite fun!
I began the day with a 2 mile walk, which I'm hoping to be able to do on a regular basis. We'll see how that goes . . . .

Happy New Year from Syzygy House!

~Namaste